I have a strange problem with my tracks. Whenever I finish a track and normalize it to 0db it still seems to me like 2 or 3 times less loud than professional tracks, although they look like the same volume if I open them e.g. in Cool Edit...

Do you have any idea what mistake I could be making

Maybe it is normal without proper mastering? Or maybe it has something to do with volume proportions of all the sounds in the track? I tried changing the proportions a little bit, using limiters before rendering and boosting dB in CoolEdit but I simply cannot make them significantly louder without crossing the 0dB line... maybe all my sounds are just so much shitty?

Try the Nomad E-3B Compressor. After you've finished your track, put it on the last slot on the master channel, choose the 'Mastering Class A' preset and set the output level according to your mix. I work at -12 db max channel volume and I find 3.8 db output boost to bring quite a lot of volume and power at a low cost of quality. You can listen to these tracks and play them at parties, but if you want to release your music, it's better to find a real mastering engineer and let him do the finishing touches.

sheilmolson wrote:I would like to suggest that instead of using cool edit you use premiere as there is problem in cool edit. But, in premiere you will not face any such problem. I too had faced the problem in sound and even after saving the file the original version is damaged.audio engineering schools in texas

Did my eyes fool me or is it a spam post with a spammy link with a spammy anchor text, hmm?

sheilmolson wrote:I would like to suggest that instead of using cool edit you use premiere as there is problem in cool edit. But, in premiere you will not face any such problem. I too had faced the problem in sound and even after saving the file the original version is damaged.audio engineering schools in texas

Did my eyes fool me or is it a spam post with a spammy link with a spammy anchor text, hmm?

well, honestly, if you dont know why thats happening, the really last thing i would recommend is using a compressor and that stuff on your own.

no, its not because its not mastered. its not because its not compressed....(well, not exactly, but might solve the issue).

its in fact, because of the dynamic range of your track. the peak does not allow for more gain, cause it would distort. and yeah, like kriz said, avoid normalization. it just raises all signals to the peak, thus ruins your work. as we´re talking about a MIXING issue here, you can have a listen/look for the peak and put it down. range decreases, whole track can be set up with quite more gain WITHOUT the need for compression
if you want to keep that dynamic range and the peak that far away from the rest, you would anyways destroy that by compression. plus compression on the master beeing really not that easy. what you can do is set up a limiter, give it really really low inpuut volume and crank it all the way up, thus heavily working. you get gain that way without loosing too much dynamic range.

at the end, ALWAYS try to avoid processing. like said, to me this beeing a mixing issue, you could solve that on source instead of friggin around with the record.....